Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly in a Senate Special Committee on Aging Hearing Wednesday questioned one of the testifying witnesses about harassing calls from people claiming to sell medical equipment and what can be done on the federal level to prevent these calls. In these cases, people claiming to sell medical equipment will call seniors and use aggressive tactics to persuade them into ordering unneeded items paid for by Medicare.
Donnelly asked Joe Dandurand, Deputy Attorney General of Missouri, “We’ve heard about these calls from seniors organizations, physicians, from folks in Indiana who have been on the receiving end of harassing phone calls from medical equipment suppliers offering medical equipment like back braces that they neither want nor need, and suppliers use aggressive tactics to persuade seniors into ordering expensive items at Medicare’s expense. We have an obligation to protect the privacy seniors have, and also to protect taxpayer’s dollars. Can you talk a little bit more in your position as Deputy Attorney General about the trends you’re seeing in regards to calls like these?”
Dandurand responded, “Now that [the scammers] are getting this figured out, how to get to these cell phones, and it’s going to mushroom and mushroom because so far we still get more complaints really from the people who are registered to landlines. So, the trends are, they are getting ahead of technology and they are really working on people’s cell phones even with the sophistication that cell phones have to try to block these numbers.”
Due to advances in telephone technology, such as robocalls, caller-ID spoofing, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), it is easier for scammers to cast a wide net and increase the number of potential victims they can reach.
Donnelly has continuously focused on scams and fraud targeted towards Seniors. Last summer, Donnelly held a field hearing in Indianapolis entitled, “Trust Your Instincts? Tools to Empower Seniors to Identify Scams and Fraud,” helping seniors identify and properly report scams and fraud. The hearing highlighted that many seniors fall victim to fraud from unsolicited phone calls by scammers and are apprehensive to report these crimes because seniors fear stigma and embarrassment, so there is greater need for education and awareness. For testimony from the field hearing and video highlights, click here.
Additionally, Donnelly along with Senators Nelson (D-FL) and Collins (R-ME) introduced the Anti-Spoofing Act of 2014 in the last Congress. This bill would seek to address spoofing and phone scams by ensuring consumers have access to a white list service, where only approved numbers can get through to the consumer’s phone; developing standards to authenticate call origin; and extending the ban on caller ID spoofing to include calls from abroad and text messaging services.
Watch Donnelly’s full remarks here.
